When undergoing a dental procedure it is obviously necessary for a patient to maintain an opened-mouth position to allow the dental professional access to the mouth. Frequently, however, the patient cannot maintain such a position for the duration of the procedure because of muscle fatigue, or, simply cannot expose those areas of his mouth that are the subject of the procedure, especially if unconscious. Accordingly, a variety of devices have been created to assist in maintaining a lip and cheek retracted and opened--mouth position.
Many of these retraction devices, however, obscure the view of the occlusal (biting) surfaces of the teeth. This is a drawback to the dental professional who is interested in obtaining an unobscured view of the occlusal surfaces of the teeth, as, for example, when photographing these surfaces. Other devices retract the cheeks in a lateral fashion, which prevents the mouth from opening fully and consequently hinders a full view of the occlusal surfaces of the teeth of both the upper or lower jaw.
One retracting device, taught in U.S. Pat. No. 4,053,984 to Moss, forces the mouth open from the inside through use of an upper and lower U-shaped tubular frame. Cheek deflectors are removably secured between these U-shaped frames and are outwardly concave in shape. This device succeeds in exposing the occlusal (or biting) surfaces of the teeth, provided that the disclosed tongue depressor is detached from the device. However, as this device retracts both the upper and lower lips and cheeks of the patient simultaneously, neither the upper or lower lips and cheeks are fully retracted; rather, both the upper and lower lips and cheeks are retracted only a portion of the distance that they could be retracted separately. Further, this device is complex in that it is intricately designed to assist in the removal of saliva from the patient's mouth when disposed therein; such complexity necessarily dictates a relatively high manufacturing cost. Still further, the device is not autoclavable, and must be cold sterilized. Thus, this device is expensive for the dental professional to use for relatively quick photographic applications, and is ill-suited for obtaining a full view of either the upper or lower occlusal surfaces of the teeth separately.
Clearly, then, there is a need for a device that permits the occlusal surfaces of the teeth of either the upper or lower jaw to be fully exposed, in autoclavable, and is relatively inexpensive to manufacture.